All things considered, though, I thought it was a good popcorn movie: enough plot, enough action, good characterization; I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

On a regular movie scale I could give it a 4, but by both my standards for Joss and for the Marvel movies in general, I can't give it more than a 3.

I mean, what villain

Actually, when you put it that way, it makes more sense. Ultron must have read the comments .

That's what we figured. Too bad they couldn't have sent him to sit with the Dalai Lama for a while. Or maybe he watched too much Buffy, "Hey, Ken, wanna see my impression of Ghandi?"

Now that I've had a little time to process, the other thing I disliked about it was there wasn't NEARLY enough Hulk smashing things, especially in the third act. Overall he probably got more screen time in Ultron, but there was nothing as satisfying as the Hulk taking out the Chitauri leviathan, or going all Tex Avery on Loki.

Did anyone here (lazy, not clicking previous) talk about what was effectively a rape joke coming out of Tony's mouth? Because that's effectively what primae noctis is, and it has bothered me since I was watching the clips that they were releasing. It's one thing to have your bad guy effectively call a female character a whiny cunt, but wow. Ick. And again, ick.

The more I think about it, the less I like the aspects I disliked most. It takes a lot of head wrangling to even get to an interpretation that minimizes the shit that skeeved me the fuck out.

I went into some of the why at length here [link]

Joss's jokes are often very problematic to me. "He's adopted?" always annoyed me.

I went into some of the why at length here

Well parsed! You really do a good job of articulating the nuances of the issue, and offer specific examples (rooted in canon) showing how the filmmakers could have finessed the intended effect (if we give Joss the benefit of the doubt) without the offending connection established between infertility/monstrousness.

Thank you, sir!

Plei, on Tony Stark's line, I mostly thought, "Oh, gross and uncool, man." Because Joss is SO not the feminist he thinks he is/claims to be/is lauded as by some of his fans.

I really glossed right over everything having to do with Natasha's disclosure of her forced sterilization/being a "monster," which is one more reason I need to see it again.

I think it was not the greatest idea to see the movie when I was exhausted and stressed from travel and stressed from finding out I'm losing one of my clients and stressed from the prospect of a day of meetings the following day and stressed from the social anxiety of hanging out with Buffistas, even though they're people who I adore (and make no mistake, getting to see AoU with shrift and tommyrot was most excellent). Because I think I missed a LOT. Everyone is talking about how Wanda came off WAY better than people had thought she might, but Wanda left NO impression on me, TBH. (Pietro annoyed me.)

I need to see it again with a clear(er) head and sitting WAY further back in the theater.

I feel traitorous to say this, but I think at least HALF of the Science Bros stuff (which was TOTAL fanservice) could have been cut in the interest of time/better backstory for other characters.

I spent the whole movie looking for things to be angry about, thanks to vague Internet reactions, so MAYBE my thorough enjoyment of the movie was partly defensive, but I really liked it. I was pretty much in from the awesome opening scene where CAP FLIPPED A MOTORCYCLE AT HYDRA, and I liked that, unlike the first movie, it didn't have to spend all that time getting the team together: it gets going and doesn't stop moving. And I loved watching them fight as a team, with their own special combos. I thought there was great character work for most of the team, though Cap and Thor didn't get a whole lot (in the first movie, everyone had a real arc), and I was surprised by how much I cared about the Maximoffs by the end (especially Wanda).

I agree with some of the criticisms, but overall I am pro-this movie.